HFPA & Dick Clark Productions Settle Long Golden Globes Lawsuit

The long-running legal battle between the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions over who controls TV rights to the Golden Globes is over. While seemingly impossible to imagine after all the rancor between the two sides, they have reached a confidential agreement that will see the Guggenheim Partners-owned dcp continuing to produce the annual awards for broadcast on NBC until 2018, sources confirm. This comes four years after the HFPA first filed, and dozens of courts dates, hundreds of filings, an early 2012 trial that saw the HFPA lose its case against dcp, and an appeals hearing last month that still hadn’t issued a ruling. During the legal battle, the HFPA and dcp had a shotgun marriage to keep producing the awards show.

The heart of the HFPA’s contention was that a 1993 extension of its deal with dcp was invalid. The agreement said that the production company, which was sold by then-owners Red Zone in the fall of 2012, had “the exclusive right to produce a live television broadcast for each of the years 1998 through and including 2005, and for any extensions, renewals, substitutions or modifications of the NBC agreement.” Federal judge Judge Howard A. Matz agreed. He also made a point of citing the disorganization among the HFPA leadership over the years. To that end, the two-week non-jury trial saw a series of past and current HFPA presidents and dcp executives take the stand. Dick Clark, now deceased, did not appear, but CBS Corp CEO Les Moonves did via video deposition. The HFPA of course appealed, but that is all moot now.